


So, Why?

by Toothlesshoodie



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Boys In Love, Kinda, Love Confessions, M/M, Oblivious losers, it's just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 11:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20545442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toothlesshoodie/pseuds/Toothlesshoodie
Summary: I'm literally an hour away from leaving to see It so I thought I'd post this fluffy fic because my heart is going to BREAK but it's all good!





	So, Why?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm literally an hour away from leaving to see It so I thought I'd post this fluffy fic because my heart is going to BREAK but it's all good!

The truth is, well, one truth, that the Losers Club is a mix of seven kids who have no visual things in common. Visually, the only people who look like they’re actually friends would be Stan and Eddie as their clothes are mostly similar in the sense that their outfits consist of mostly polos and respectable shorts. Personality-wise, the Losers Club is a mix of seven kids who all love each other dearly and couldn’t imagine their lives without each other, though one day they knew they’d have to find out. 

Yes, the group worked well together, nobody really knew why exactly but the members of the club could tell you that it’s the shared experience of being an outcast that brought them together. That’s not to say it’s the only reason they’re together as a group but it’s definitely how it started. 

Now, there were friendships that were still unbreakable and beyond a group dynamic that existed between the seven. For example, Mike and Ben’s friendship that blossomed out of their shared interest in Derry and history in general, they usually choose to be near each other during one of the group outings or hang out individually often. Everybody did that, of course, it’s just that they might be the person the other one turns to when they need to rant or just have fun. 

However, there is one relationship in the group that everybody knew was stronger than friendship ever since it came to be, yet nobody said anything, probably because nobody really knew what it was exactly. It was stronger than friendship, farther from attraction and beyond anything any of the other losers had ever seen or felt before. Maybe they didn’t classify it as anything because they didn’t have the right word for it, even though the right word was very obvious. 

…

**“Hey, Eddie! What’re you doing after school?” **

_ “Oh, I’m actually busy today, I promised Richie I would study at his place, next time?” _

…

**“Richie, you’re going to be literally three pennies away from being broke if you buy that bag of corn nuts. You don’t even like corn nuts! Why bother buying them?”**

_ “Eds likes them, Bev! Could you imagine infuriating the mighty Edward? I couldn’t.” _

…

_ “You can’t sit here!” _

**“Why? There’s a ton of space next to you, Eddie.” **

_ “I’m saving it.” _

**“For Richie?”**

_ “I’m saving it.” _

**“...”**

…

**“I thought we agreed that Eddie was going on my team for paintball.”**

_ “Please, I couldn’t let this short cutie go on your team, he’d shoot my ass in a second.”  _

…

“Why?” Stan asked out loud one day. On this particular day, the only losers who came out to the quarry were Ben, Stan, and Mike. They (well, they meaning Eddie) planned to meet up with the other half of the club (and other half meaning Richie) later in the day but they were currently wrapping up an infuriatingly long game of Street Fighters back at the arcade where the whole group had been earlier. Truth be told, Eddie really didn’t want to leave and subtly tried to stay behind but gave in when Stan said he had something he wanted to talk about with him. So, now they’re lounging about on the warm rocks of the quarry. 

“Why what?” Eddie asked and pulled his head up from the little drawings he had been making with a stick in the dirt below his feet. 

“You’re always connected at the hip with Richie. I don’t really know any of us to spend as much time as you do together. I’ve never seen either of you two spend as much time as you do with each other with anyone else, which is weird to me because we’ve all always been on the same page as our friendships go. We’re all equally best friends to each other, and yet it feels like that’s not the case for either of you. So, why?” 

Eddie has been speechless before, mostly when his mom was scolding him or when Richie had said or done something so impossibly stupid he simply could not form the words to tell him. But, now he was speechless because he genuinely had no idea  _ why.  _ It had always been that way, Eddie may have met Bill first but he was truly friends with Richie before he was with anyone else. Richie was his polar opposite as far as how he was raised and how expressive he was allowed to be. Maybe that excited the younger Eddie, it was exciting to be around someone who was so unlike him and so unlike his suffocating home life. Of course, he wouldn’t have known, he was only seven years old at the time. 

Now, the real truth is that Richie and Eddie aren’t platonic and they both knew that even though they never talked about it. Afternoon cuddles, lingering cheek kisses, hand holding under tables, and, of course, the two chaste kisses they shared in the dead of night when they knew the world and their anxieties were asleep. It was clear to both of them that they weren’t just friends, and that was okay, but they weren’t ones to force labels onto anything, and that’s okay too. 

But, being presented with the question, Eddie knew that maybe it was okay to label this one thing. 

“I think I love him.”

Stan didn’t ask any more questions. 

…

“Fuck yeah!” Richie cried out as he burst through the doors of the rusting arcade with Bill and Beverly following behind him with proud smiles. “Holy shit, just wait until I find Eds! He’s going to flip!” 

Bill looked to Bev as the remark about Eddie slipped from Richie’s chapped lips. It was a knowing look, one that referred to multiple questions and conversations about their two friends and trying to truly understand why their relationship was so different from the rest. Bill suggested that it could possibly be from them being friends the longest in the group, and that’s when Beverly offered that maybe they weren’t friends at all. The night before, right after both Richie and Eddie blew the two of them off, they decided that maybe it was time to finally ask questions about it. 

“I mean, why just Eddie?” Beverly weakly offered as a bridge to connect the remark to the question. 

“Well, obviously because he’s my Eddie! Plus, I’ve been telling him about this for what feels like months at this point, he’s going to be so excited.” 

Bill pursed his lips and crossed his arms as if he was about to try and even weaker attempt of asking the same question. “I’m s-sure Stan will b-be too?” 

“Hm, sure, but not as much as Eddie.” 

Bev and Bill stop walking then and give Richie a look like he just told them that he was seriously going to shave his head and run ass naked through the streets at midnight. Richie kept walking for a few seconds more before he realized he couldn’t see Bev’s red hair bounce as she walked beside him. He slowly turned around with a confused, questioning smile that wavered when he saw the not-so-humorous look on his friend’s faces. 

“What?” Richie asked.

Bev just sighed and walked up to be closer to Richie. “Richie, we’re all friends, right?  _ Best  _ friends?” 

Richie shrugged, not in a careless  _ yeah I guess  _ way but more of a  _ yeah of course, what kind of question is that?  _ “That’s a fucking stupid question.”

Both his friends rolled their eyes but Bev continued. “Okay, then what’s with the constant fuss over Eddie?” 

Richie was quick to open his mouth as if he had a response already prepared for a totally different question. Maybe something closer to “did it bother you when Stan pushed you over the edge the other week after you accidentally pushed a shit ton of dirt onto his book?” to which Richie would’ve replied, “why, yes, it did bother me, he has a stick so far up his ass it caused water to fly up my nose!” But, that wasn’t the question, and Richie had no answer to this question, that’s why no noise came out of his mouth when he tried to speak. 

Instead, he let out an awkward chuckle and felt himself blush a little. “Uh, I don’t really know what you mean.” 

“S-sure you do.” Bill offered, “we all d-do.” 

Richie shook his head and finally let his smile drop. Of course he knew what they were talking about. It wasn’t like he just didn’t comprehend the kisses and the hand-holding and the cuddles. Hell, they’re probably the only thing Richie ever comprehends. 

“You spend every free moment with him, well, unless one of us drags you away from him. It’s like he’s a magnet and the only person attracted to him is you!” 

Richie kind of wants to make a joke that, yeah, he’s very attracted to him, but it’s not the time. 

“So, why?” 

Richie felt his skin prickle just a little bit, he had the urge to scratch at it but he didn’t. He looked at it though, it was on his right elbow and he stared at it with pursed lips. He knew the answer, he knew the question as well as he knew where to find everything in his messy room when nobody else could possibly know. He knew the answer like he knew his favorite candies and outfits. He knew the answer like he knew the way his truck liked to turn on the check engine light even though nothing was wrong because it was a very old truck. He knew the answer like he knew Eddie. 

“I… I love him.” 

…

The revelations… well, they weren’t really revelations. More like saying things they already knew but out loud for the first time. Now, if it were a revelation, the two might’ve avoided each other for much longer than necessary. They might’ve even gotten into a fight and pushed the other away only to show up a week or month later apologizing and confessing their undying love. 

But, it wasn’t a revelation. 

So, that night Richie still crawled into Eddie’s room at night despite being a few years to big for the window and many years too old to still be doing it. Eddie still smiled when he saw him and pulled back his comforter so Richie could wiggle in next to him and wrap his skinny but warm arms around his torso. Eddie still snuggled into his chest and chuckled at a sleepy joke Richie huffed out and things were still the same. 

“Richie?” Eddie whispered, the sleepiness heavy in his voice but the coherent thoughts not yet gone from his head. 

“Yeah, Eds?” Richie swore he felt his heart skip a beat at the softness of the smaller boy’s voice, it gave him butterflies like no other. 

“I love you.” 

And, funny enough, the world didn’t freeze and Richie didn’t freak out like some people would’ve he would if they spent three seconds around him. Instead, everything felt just right, beyond right, righter than right. Everything was perfect. 

“I love you too.” 

  
  



End file.
